The Doctor's Choice
by AMessofADreamerx
Summary: An unknown enemy has devised a plan to take down the Doctor, by kidnapping all the people he loved, throughout time and a few different regenerations.
1. Chapter 1

_Well hey there! I've been writing this story for a couple of months now, probably since the 50th Anniversary and I found out a few of my favorite companions and Doctors weren't there. So I came up with an idea where they are. Because of wibbly wobbly timey whimey stuff, I can't say it's really AU. Not yet. I don't know. I think about it and confuse myself. :P _

_I don't own Doctor Who or any of the characters. I'm 99.9% sure there will be no OCs either._

**CHAPTER ONE**

Clara walked in the control room, running her fingers through her still damp hair from a shower. "Doctor, I-" she started, but cut herself off at the sight of him. He leaned against the railing, with a fallen face and eyes glued to his psychic paper.

"Doctor, what is it?" She asked softly, and the Doctor started at the sound of her voice.

He let out a long sigh, running a hand through his light hair. "Clara... I don't know." Her face scrunched up in confusion and she stroded over to see what was so perplexing, his sad eyes following her. She caught his eyes before focusing on his paper.

"Rose Tyler," Clara read words aloud. She bit her lip- she knew this name, but she didn't know who it was. Judging by the Doctor's face, though, this Rose was someone of importance.

His eyebrows drew together at the name and she realized there was a slight tremor in his hands.

"I don't know what this could mean. Rose is... she isn't..," He mumbled, trailing off. He took one more long glance of the scrawl of words, before shoving it back in his coat pocket.

"Doctor?" Clara paused, waiting for her Doctor's eyes to meet hers, "Who is she?"

* * *

It was just him now, really. Just Jack Harkness. All his friends have died or he put their family in danger and wanted nothing to do with him or stuck in another dimension. And one is ignoring all attempts at reaching out, though that might be because he's busy time traveling and saving the universe, but doesn't he ever think about Jack? It's been years since he last saw the Doctor and everyone was together, including Rose in this dimenson and Donna with her memories, for one last huzzah, but it's not like he's getting any older either...

He wasn't going to get anyone else involved this time, he decided. There could be Torchwoods elsewhere, but just him in this Cardiff base. This base is cursed and he won't let anyone else get involved and die because of him. Jack won't even cease away and die- no, he'll always have the deaths of his friends and the distrusts of the ones alive. That's his part of the curse, he figures, so he's going to live with that here, alone, and not drag anyone else down with him.

Jack flipped on the light and found it was exactly as it was. Over there was Tosh's computer and where Owen stood thinking and where Ianto... _Ianto_... Memories will drive him insane here, but he pushes these thoughts out of his head and goes around turning on all the computers and monitors. The building buzzed alive.

In a way, it calmed him, being back at it. He sat there for a while, checking readings and watching possible extraterrestrial videos. Seconds turned into minutes and minutes into hours. His eyes blurred at the screen and it was around the time he was nodding off that something truly amazing happened.

Readings on the Cardiff rift line went through the roof. Jack typed around on the computer for a moment, before leaning back in his chair. Something big was going down.

He grabbed his coat and pulled it on as he ran. It billowed dramatically behind him. Jack went the bridge, the general area the rift tended to bring things through, but nothing looked out pf place. People drive in their cars and walked hand in hand like one of the biggest things Jack has ever seen didn't happen.

Frozen in place, he tried to calculate what could possibly be happening. Shaking his head, he brought himself back to the base, not as fast as he ran out of there, but with steps dreading what he could possibly find next. Steps of wanting to not know and know at the same time.

Something bad was coming up, Jack could feel it in his bones.

* * *

This Doctor still had a rather young face, though older than the next. His mop of brown hair fell perfectly around his head and his eyes looked like melted chocolate. He stood leaning on a brick wall, on the corner of a street in London. He watched as his old friend sat at a booth in the diner across the street with a dark skinned man. His friend was strong willed, loud, and honest. She was also responsible for the world not going to complete and utter chaos, but Donna can't ever know that.

She flung her head back with laughter and the Doctor smiled, he could almost hear it all the way over here. He remembered it, her laughter. He would never forget Donna Nobles.

The Doctor turned away and walked back to his Tardis. He was just checking up on her, after all. Nothing more. Nothing more _could_ happen, he has to stay away from her for the rest of her life, and she doesn't know why. Or him, for that matter. Not anymore. But she was safe and that's all he was doing, checking up on her.

He suddenly heard his name being called, "Doctor!" His heart skipped a beat, for one tiny second before reality sank in.

It was a voice he'd recognize anywhere, a unique voice belonging to an unique man. However the Doctor's face still lit up without permission with the sight of him.

"I knew you'd come back to see her. I knew it." Jack blurted out first, a little out of breath from his unexpected walk to run, but mainly from the fear he wouldn't catch up, he would lose him again.

The Doctor looked sheepish for a moment. "Just checking up on her. I just... wanted to know if she was happy," He admitted.

"Is she?" Jack asked quietly.

The other man smiled softly. "Yeah. Looks like she's engaged again. Known this bloke longer than a few months though and is quite certain he isn't working for an evil alien spider."

Jack returned the smile, "Good." However it didn't last long. He had almost started to hope he wouldn't see the Doctor again, wouldn't have to face what his computers have been telling him what's going on in the universe.

"Doctor..." He trailed off, trying to find words. Jack speechless didn't happen. He was always charismatic, always knowing the right words. The smile fell of the Doctor's face.

"A couple weeks ago, the Cardiff Riff showed an enormous amount of power. I went to go check it out, but I found nothing. Then other readings... it's like when Rose ripped a hole in the universe to get here to warn you." Jack's voice nearly hesitated over the name of their friend... the Doctor's love.

The Doctor was silent for a moment. "Let's go see what the Tardis has to say."

A smile appeared suddenly on Jack's face. He was going back in it, he was going back with him.

They hurriedly entered the Tardis and Jack felt like he was breathing again for the first time in a long time.

* * *

This man's defining features were his big, floppy ears and short cropped hair. He had light blue eyes and slightly aged skin, older than his next. He was on his 9th regeneration as the Doctor and despite what he had to do to get here, he was rarely alone anymore. A sweet blonde women had taken a place at his side as a friend and slowly stolen his heart. Though he hadn't quite realized that last part yet.

The Doctor was on his rarely alone moments, as Rose Tyler spent a couple of days with her mother. It was a rightly deserved vacation after we spent the past couple days a few thousands (or er, more like 200,000) years in the future on a space station where people got computer implanted in their brains and when they got promotions, they were never to be seen again. They figured it out and all went right again.

Rose and him were always in danger and always saving people, so when she wanted to go home, they went home. He was currently camped out in his Tardis in front of Rose's apartment building when he heard the sudden scratch of static. The Doctor searched around and found the little television on the control console was the source of noise.

White-black static bounced around the screen and the Doctor flicked at it a couple times. Nothing happened, then a silhouette started to form on the screen. Two silhouettes in a white room. A red headed women with a round face pounded on the walls, screaming something, but all the Doctor heard was static. A man stood behind her, trying to touch her- to comfort her. His lips were forming words, but he was a deal more calmer than the girl.

The Doctor slapped the TV a couple times and slowly the voices were morphed clear. The women was screaming _Doctor _and the man was saying _Amy_.

* * *

Rose Tyler currently didn't know where she was, and she was slightly confused _who_ she was. Each time she cracked opened her eyes, she was met with bright lights and burning eyeballs, so she decided to keep them shut. It wasn't helping her answer her questions, though, and she knew she'd have to move past it at some point, but for the moment images ran through her mind.

_An image of two perfect hair Doctors on the beach._

_An image of one of them kissing her, then one leaving her._

_An image of laughing with the new Doctor, the Doctor that wasn't hers, but was._

_The image of the all too human Doctor hooked up to IVs, looking pale and sickly._

_The image of the lifeless Doctor and then Rose on her knees, face down by a grave._

She didn't get the perfect life everyone in the other world had been thinking. She was more alone than ever, then before 10.5 came into her life, and even though there was another addition to her life, a baby sister.

Rose felt alone, all the time, but she did her duty to the Doctor to live. She kept on keeping on and doing all she could to help people, to do all things he would approve of, because Rose knew he wouldn't approve of what she was thinking. What she felt. Alone and depressed and filled with longing, and though she felt so selfish, she couldn't get out of the tangling mess of feelings.

Then one morning the sky cracked open and the last thing Rose saw before she fell into oblivion, and woke up with it too painful to open her eyes, was the Alternate Universe, Pete's World, being burned to a crisp.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

"Doctor! Doctor!" the red-head continued to call every once in a while. What else could she possibly do right now? She had deducted they were being held prisoners in a white cube. There were no windows or doors. When food came, it just appeared soundlessly, and so they have yet to see the faces of their captors.

"Amy," the light haired man said quietly, and pulled her into him. "He can't hear you."

"Rory," Amy replied in a snarky tone, pulling away, "You don't know that."

"I think you give him too much credit sometimes. He's a Timelord, not a god," Rory sighed, pressing the tips of his fingers to the bridge of his nose. He didn't know how long they'd been there anymore. He didn't think neither of them realized the extent of their capture would be. If they had, he would have made marks in the wall or something like they did in movies.

"And you're an idiot," Amy replied grumpily. Things had truly been good for them after she let the Angel take her back to Rory. Things had been too good, she supposed, and that's why they were abducted from their home late one afternoon, true to a silly sci-fi movie.

"I'm not the one screaming at thin air," Rory snapped back. Normally well-mannered in the ways of Amy, even his patience was wearing thin. Hopelessness secretly plagued him. The Doctor truly wasn't around anymore for them, so who WAS going to save them? But he wasn't going to let Amy see his despair. They were truly goners when she gave up.

"I'm not. Just because he isn't a god doesn't mean his Tardis isn't," She said, though she slumped next to him, the same feeling of hopelessness leaking in.

* * *

The 9th Doctor leaned against the console as he watched the couple interact. They knew him obviously, but he didn't know them. New companions? Where was Rose? And then right on cue, behind this Rory and Amy, who now silently sat cross-legged on the floor, she appeared. Wearing what resembled a hospital gown, she just laid there, making no noise, causing the Doctor's hearts to stop.

She was dead.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jack was in a state of disbelief. The puppy-eyed Doctor played around with his controls and Jack just gazed around in amazement. He'd lost all hope he'd ever be back in the Tardis. He wasn't here for good reasons, but he was here nonetheless.

"I see the spike you mentioned," the Doctor mumbled and fiddled around some more, causing a video to pop on the television tucked in the control panel. Jack reined his wonderment back and watched the video from over the Doctor's shoulder.

Ten seconds past and all they saw was endless black with billions of white dots- of deep space and stars, and then quite suddenly the stars began to vibrate, and the dots begin to form one big light, and the screen is being stretched into a weird curve. Bits of gray debris are being pulled from behind the camera. Amongst the white, a black jagged line appears. Both men lean in, trying to make out what's in the crack as it grows. Soon a shape is made out, red lights flash over it, and Jack realizes it must be a spaceship. Right before its exit, a blinding light overtakes the camera, and the screen turns to static.

"What's this?" Jack said breathlessly. He could not believe what he had just seen! He'd hung on for dear life through a time travel and that was not what they had just witnessed appearing. It was something so much bigger, so much harder to pull off, and he knew deep down that when Rose and the Doctor jumped universes before, it had looked something like that.

"Security footage from a galactical space dump," the Doctor replied with the same amount of surprise.

"From the same time as the spike from the Rift?" Jack asked, but the Doctor only gave a short nod. He rocked on the heels of his feet, letting out a breath. "Doctor, was that-"

"Dimension travelling? Yeah, I believe so," the Doctor answered before he'd even finished the question.

"Could it be her...?" Jack barely dared to say, but knew it was what the Doctor had been thinking.

"Could be," was all the reply he got from him however.

"Do you think it was?" Jack prompted more.

"I dunno," the Doctor finally answered, looking at him. "For her sake, I hope not."

* * *

"Tell me about her. Rose," Clara demanded softly. Her Doctor had succumbed to leaning on the control panel's railings, staring nearly unblinkingly into his psychic paper. He looked up at her with dazed eyes.

"Tell me about Rose," she repeated herself, and the Doctor looked down at the paper again.

"Rose Tyler came into my life soon after the Time War," he began in a quiet voice, "I was war-hardened and guilt-reddened. She was a child, only 19. Young and naive about the world, with no sense of what to do next. She was... fantastic." An odd smile fell across his face then.

"What happened to her?" Clara asked, because of course something happened. You don't know the Doctor and not have something happen to you.

"Well... she ended up in an alternate universe with her dad, who was dead in our world, but alive there, and her mother, who died in that world, but was alive here, and... a human clone of me, with bits of my old friend Donna thrown in. And now she's dead here, but very much alive there... in Pete's World," the name they gave it was weighted on his tongue, as memories he generally suppressed tried to flood him, and he ended up sighing again. "It's all rather complicated."

"When is anything with you ever not complicated, Doctor?" Clara replied, rolling her eyes. She didn't intend to admit that his explanation caused her head to spin and she was still trying to get out what he had meant. Once she sorted it out to the best of her ability, she asked, "So. Okay, basically she's in another universe where both her parents are alive and she has a human version of you?" And Donna, but she didn't want to mention that name. Sometimes it's still hard to wrap around the past he had before her. She knew somewhat what became of Amy and Rory, the last pair, and she had a feeling others had similar endings. It made her worry about what her future might hold.

But that doesn't sound like a bad future to her. Not only does she have a Doctor to keep, but this one too. She suddenly wondered how often this Doctor- the real one saw her then.

To hear it sum up so simply when it wasn't that simple pulled at his heartstrings, but he shrugged, "Hum. Perhaps it wasn't so complicated then."

"So why would her name show up on there? We could go see her and make sure she's fine," Clara suggested, feeling a tad jealous of this girl.

"Ah, there's complicated part... I can't ever see her again. To go to Pete's World could cause the universes to implode, so if I'm seeing her name on psychic paper, though she's a universe away, it should be assumed as a bad thing."

Oh. Terror replaced jealously in an instant. Are the Doctor's friends doomed to have bad endings? And why does she still choose to stay with him? Clara questions herself for the thousandth time, but always comes up with the same answer.

"What happened to Donna?" She asked though, suddenly feeling a little testy.

"Donna? How do you know about her?" He asked with wide eyes, a guilty look flashing across his face.

"You just mentioned her! 'A human clone of me, and bits of my old friend Donna.' What happened to her?" Clara repeated her question, however what she really was asking was, what was going to happen to her, Clara? But he knew this.

The Doctor didn't answer her with words, but with sad eyes.

She pursed her lips at his silence. "I need a moment," she muttered, before pushing past him and entering the labyrinth halls of the Tardis.

* * *

"C'mon, baby, show me something," the 10th Doctor whispered to his Tardis. He rested his forehead against panel and sighed, letting her energy run through him for a moment.

"Is there another space dump in the direction of the spaceship? Or a truck stop, or… or anything with security footage. Or anything. God. Don't leave me again, Doctor," Jack said quietly, a slight pleading in his voice. At the tone, the Doctor looked up at him, really looked at him for the first time since reuniting with him.

But just as the Doctor was going to reply, a sudden burst of static filled the room, causing the men's head to jerk to the TV screen.

"Oh you sexy, look at what you did! Brilliant," a voice cackled as the screen formed a face.

"Well, what do we have here…" the 10th Doctor began, but the younger man cut him off.

"Hey, it's you!" He exclaimed, with an excited grin, then leaned in towards the screen, "And who do you have there…"

"Heeeello, my name is—" Jack began to introduce himself with a grin, suggestively eyeing the man.

"Jack. Captain Jack Harkness! Oh, look at you," He said with just as much enthusiasm as before.

"You know me?" Jack asked, confusion evident in his voice. which caused Jack's grin to falter, because with those lively eyes and flop of hair that he could just imagine running his hand through, he had definitely liked what he'd seen. And so did this man, however in a different way. Jack looked around for a moment, before returning his focus to the screen. "Well, hopefully we're out of the woods for a paradox."

"Do _I _know you?" 10 asked, squinting at this newcomers face. Something way down deep in his eyes seemed a bit familiar…

"Oh, sorry, right. I'm the Doctor! Yeah, you regenerate and it's all rather dramatic 'I don't want to gooooo' and you get me!" 11 answered, pointing to his face with a wide grin.

A look of horror crossed 10's face as Jack's eyebrows shot up at this new piece of information and squinted his eyes at the screen, trying to memorize this new Doctor face.

"Am I wearing a _bowtie_?" 10 said in disgust and went to go share a look with Jack, but the man just shrugged.

"I say you look pretty snazzy," he replied, and therefore Jack suddenly got the brute of 10's disgust.

"Ooh 'snazzy', I like that! I forgot about that word," 11 interjected, puffing his chest out slightly. "I'm… _snazzy_. But… _but_," the older/younger Doctor's face dropped, and his tone grew serious, "Have you noticed how weird our old gal is being? I could tell she was struggling with something. I just kept getting static, though, and then suddenly you pop up on my screen! What's going on on your end?"

"Weeellllll," 10 brought out the word, dreading to have to put in words _again _what this dimension breach could be.

"Doctor, who're you talking to? The TARDIS isn't going to answer you back, how many times am I going to- oh. Hello, it's you!" A new face came across the screen, pushing 11 away to make room for her. "How are you?"

"Aside from just witnessing dimension traveling and somehow being patched to a future self and friend that I have never met before, I'm dandy," the Doctor in question flashed a grin at her.

"Oh, my bad," Clara said a bit sadly. "A little ahead of myself, I suppose."

"That's Clara," 11 introduced distractedly, before continuing, "but do tell me about that dimension travel you mentioned."

"But you haven't introduced the other bloke to me! Let's slowdown and drag out this dimension travel talk just a tad bit, please," Clara cut in before the 10th Doctor had time to explain.

"I'm with her," Jack put in, before proceeding with her request, "Captain Jack Harkness at your service, Clara," he said with a grand wave of his hand.

"Nice to meet you, Captain," she nodded at him and he sent her one of his 'Jack Harkness specials' smile.

"Are you done?" 11 asked her, a little shortly, "I want to hear about the dimension traveling!"

"Yeah, yeah, I think I am. Continue with the dimension traveling talk," Clara finally said and all eyes went to 10.

As 10 informed them, Clara couldn't help but to wish the TARDIS had never patched them through.

* * *

All the 9th Doctor knew then was that his Rose Tyler, the one that was currently a couple buildings away from where he was located, was not to get involved with this at all costs. She was going to be mad with him later, but he began prepping the TARDIS to depart, trusting her to take the Doctor where he needed to be.

* * *

**_AN: Not gonna lie, guys! I kinda forgot about this and then I came across this draft, nearly finished, and I thought, 'why the heck not!?' and finished it up. If I get a good response, I'll try to keep up with this as well as my other fanfictions! Let me know what you think of the chapter :) – Anna_**


End file.
